Exports surged significantly in almost every market, especially shipments to West Asia, Europe and Australia.

It is a truism, easily forgotten, that the West, in its modern phase, has not stood still. Also easily forgotten is the fact that "the West" is a relative concept only. Without an "East" or a "non-West" to compare it with, it would quite simply not exist; there would be no word for it in our vocabulary. If the concept of the West did not exist, of course, the spatial variations within the geographical area now subsumed under "the West" would loom larger in our minds. The difference between France and America might seem just as great as those between China and the West.

The merger-and-acquisitions cycle and also the market are far more beneficial in Europe and Asia and in emerging markets than they are in the U.S..

It's a hot thing in Europe and it's a hot thing in Asia -- it's taking off dramatically. It's about two years behind where the U.S. is in offering online services and in terms of being the choice of retail investors.

...the modern bias in contemporary Western scholarship (which has spread to the rest of the world as well) insists upon focusing all attention on the formation of the modern world and ‘‘modernity.’’ By directing attention to a time period rather than to a region, Western scholars can place the West at the center of any discussion, and subordinate backward Asia to Western history, without explicitly condemning Asian cultures and polities or arguing for a narrowly Eurocentric view of the world. Nevertheless, modern history is effectively a racist pursuit that not only elevates white Westerners above all others, but also actively denigrates Asian history.

In Australia we just weren't as well-known as we are in Asia. We had to start completely from ground zero.